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How Freelancers are Using Social Media for Real Results

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Networking is the bread and butter of a freelance career. Because competition is so fierce, landing consistent gigs isn't just about talent. It relies heavily on who you know, and how connected you are.

Social media can expand your freelance network exponentially and yield opportunities that you'd never find elsewhere. But just like pounding the physical pavement, it takes investment, hard work, and time.

We spoke to some freelancers in a variety of fields who find that channeling efforts into social media can really pay dividends. Here are some examples of their success.

Connect Your Networks to Your Work

Perhaps the most obvious advantage of social media for freelancers is connection building. As a freelancer, you are your brand, and like any social marketing campaign, it's not about racking up followers or flooding the space with links. It's all about the conversation.

"First of all, I use social media for networking. Networking to me is more than just gathering followers — it's getting to know them," said Laura Spencer, a professional freelance writer from North Central Texas. "In each type of social media where I participate, I have a core group of friends who I talk to regularly. The primary way to get to know others through social media is to respond to their comments with questions."

Once those social connections are made, the distance between conversation and a paying gig is much shorter. Many cite Twitter as an ideal medium for this type of networking.

"Twitter certainly provides a level of access to the types of clients freelancers routinely work with on a much closer level than cold calling or other marketing techniques," said Thursday Bram, a freelance writer based in Maryland. "Rather than trying to sell articles to people who I've found in big directories, I'm selling articles to people who I chat with on a regular basis."

Jon Phillips, founder of Sypre Studios, a small design agency in Montreal, concurred. "Twitter has helped me connect with potential clients, network with other designers — many of [whom] I ended up working with or hiring for projects — and keep people up to date with my own projects. In fact, my three biggest clients ... have found me either directly or indirectly because of Twitter and my blog."

Social Networks as a Resource

Social networks can be useful in different ways. On one hand, they are a marketing platform where you can share and promote your work. On the other, they serve as rich community resources for freelancers. Once you've built and cultivated your network, a simple tweet or update can yield valuable crowdsourced wisdom.

"I've also used social media for researching with mixed results. Primarily, I use Twitter for this," said Spencer. "I tweet my question several times a day. Often, I can get nearly a dozen answers from various peers and others. Of course, I thank anyone who responds."

"I also find Twitter to be an extremely useful platform for getting recommendations for apps, software and tools to use in my design business," said Phillips. "I much prefer personal recommendations from people I network with than any other type of recommendation."

Share What You're Currently Working On

Social networks are all about sharing — they always have been. For the typical user, this may mean weekend plans, current music tastes, or the lunch du jour. The freelancer, however, should be sharing thoughts about her current projects whenever possible. This not only drums up practical topics that your followers and friends can discuss with you, but also lets interested parties know that you're actively engaged in qualifying work.

"I routinely post tweets about what topics I'm currently writing about and, more than once, I've had the editors I work with (and follow on Twitter) respond with a comment that they'd love for me to pitch a similar story [to them]," said Bram.

Social media is also rich media, and there are so many dynamic ways to share and spread your content. If you work in a visual medium, one way to distinguish yourself is to integrate multimedia into your social strategy.

"I was recently turned on to Screenr, which is an awesome service for quickly capturing screencast videos and immediately tweeting or embedding them," said Brian Casel, a freelance web designer and founder of ThemeJam. "I create short screencasts of my WordPress themes to demonstrate how the back-end theme options work."

Because of Screenr's tight integration with Twitter (similar functionally to TwitPic), a design demo or other visual showcase of your work can be, in essence, built right into your social presence.

"Visitors like to dig deeper into products before making a purchase, and screencasts are the perfect tool for this. I've noticed an increase in sales immediately following the release of Screenr videos," Casel added.

Build Credibility in Public

Social freelancers shouldn't be myopic about their work. It's difficult to build credibility by only sharing your own projects and links.

"Simply by tweeting about web design and WordPress, I've been able to build credibility as an expert in these areas," said Casel. "As a result, I've had several leads and freelance gigs come to me via direct message and @replies on Twitter."

By sharing valuable insights, even when they're not your own, people are more likely to regard you as a specialist — someone who is tapped in to a particular industry, and who can deliver quality work.

This task of curation requires special attention. Make no mistake — it's work. But budgeting time away from projects and into building credibility can be extremely valuable in the long term.

"The key is to be consistent, both in quality and quantity of tweets," Casel added. "Don't auto-tweet or spam. I un-follow those who do, and many others will as well."

Blogging is also a key component in creating a public repository of your expertise. Building even a modest readership around quality content can go a long way toward credibility. It gives social sharers a reputable place to link to, and web searchers a place to land.

As a blogging professional looking to take your readership to the next level, guest blogging on a more trafficked destination is a great strategy.

"I've been blogging about freelancing on my personal site for quite some time, which is a great outlet to share ideas and interact. But to really gain exposure to a large audience, I regularly submit guest articles to popular blogs in my industry," said Casel. "The key here is to put your absolute best stuff out there. That means taking the time to flesh out ideas, provide examples, and pack as much useful information and resources into each article as possible."

This exposure reinforces your credibility and can expand your reach in a particular field.

"Bigger blogs may offer payments for guest articles, but it shouldn't be about the money," said Casel. "The real value of guest blogging comes in the exposure and credibility you build for yourself by offering useful and insightful content. The more you put into it, the more you get out."

Series supported by Gist

Gist helps you build stronger professional relationships by bringing together information from across the web for all your contacts and their companies giving you the right information at the right moment to get a first meeting, deliver an amazing pitch, or just find a better way to make a connection. Gist does all the work for you, assembling a dynamic collection of all your contacts and their companies from your email inbox, your social networks, or even your CRM system automatically building and updating their profiles as new content is published – by them or about them.

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